House of the Dragon's second season may not arrive until 2024, but showrunner Ryan Condal has said that it will feel much more like the "middle run of Game of Thrones" because it will have "been earned" from spending so much time with the characters in the slower-paced first season.

Speaking to The Sunday Times ahead of the Season 1 finale of House of the Dragon, Condal promised that Season 2 will have "more blood" and will "get to the spectacle." However, he is proud of how the first season took its time to fully establish these characters throughout their lives.

“We will get to the spectacle,” Condal said. “But you have to understand these people’s complexities before they’re thrown into war. Series two will hit the rhythms people came to expect from the middle run of Game of Thrones, but it will have been earned, and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put the work in.”

Condal also spoke on one of the biggest complaints by some of the fanbase - the lack of "the gift of Tyrion Lannister." Condal and the team want these moments of levity between those of great sorrow, but he also doesn't want to just retread what came before and take the easy route. That being said, he does believe that Matt Smith's Daemon does fill some of that void left by Tyrion.

"Any of that,” Condal says of trying to create a Tyrion-like character or one even like Bronn, “would have just read as, ‘Oh, they’re doing their Tyrion — it’s pandering’. Now we’re writing series two, though, we’re finding natural pathways into moments of levity in this really dark drama. Also, I think Matt Smith is very funny. If there is one character that does not care, it is Daemon.”

For more, check out our review of the penultimate episode of House of the Dragon and how a shocking moment in the series mirrors Game of Thrones' greatest sin.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Steam has once again broken its own concurrent record as this weekend saw over 30 million users online at one time.

As revealed by SteamDB, 30,032,005 players were online on Sunday, October 23, and the top five games being played consisted of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Lost Ark, Apex Legends, and PUBG: Battlegrounds. Not all 30 million players were in a game, as many could have been browsing the store, chatting in communities, and more.

Counter-Strike was far and away the winner of the weekend with a peak of around 1.05 million concurrent players. Dota 2's peak was around 750,000, and then there was a decent dropoff as the next highest was PUBG's 442,148 peak.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Steam has seen it record of concurrent users get broken over and over again. Over Thanksgiving weekend 2021, the peak was at 27.3 million and a few months later it saw that number reach 28 million. It has fluctuated between those numbers, but this is the first time it has crossed the 30 million mark.

With Steam Decks becoming more readily available and Cyberpunk 2077 having a bit of a renaissance where over one million players were jumping into Night City each day, Steam has had some high highs these past few months.

This record may not stand for long, as the holiday season and Steam's upcoming Autumn Sale (November 22-29) and Winter Sale (December 22 - January 5) will undoubtedly draw even more players to the platform.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

While it remains to be seen what his true impact on the DCEU will be, Dwayne Johnson has, as he has been saying for a long time now, challenged the "hierarchy of power" at the movies with Black Adam and its strong $140 million global weekend box office victory.

As reported by Box Office Mojo, Black Adam earned $67 million at the domestic box office and another $73 million overseas for a total of $140 million. This was enough to pass Shazam!'s $53.5 million opening and fall right beside Aquaman's $67.8 million.

Black Adam cost $195 million to produce before marketing, so it still has a bit of a way to go to recoup its costs. One milestone it has accomplished, however, is becoming Johnson's best opening aside from The Mummy Returns' $68.1 million and various Fast & Furious films. As a leading star in a film, this is the best opening he's had.

In our Black Adam review, we said that it "overindulges to the point where it’s hard to enjoy the DC anti-hero’s debut. It’s packed with undeveloped characters and an excessive number of repetitive action scenes, to the point where its half-baked debate on what it means to be a hero is lost in all the noise."

Ticket to Paradise, the weekend's other new film, took second place with a global opening of $96.6 million. The film starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney brought in $16.3 million domestically and $80.2 million internationally.

Smile took third place with $8.3 million and was followed by Halloween Ends' $8 million and Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile's $4.2 million.

For more on Black Adam, check out our explainer of the ending, what that cameo means for the DCEU, and our deep dive into the history of Sabbac.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

MAJOR Spoilers ahead for Black Adam!

Dwayne Johnson and cinematographer Lawrence Sher have revealed how that Black Adam cameo came to be and was filmed in secret.

As reported by THR, the long-awaited return of Henry Cavill as Superman during the post-credits scene of Black Adam was not a moment the team behind the film had been planning since the beginning, but was something that was added near the end during reshoots.

While the Superman cameo excited the team, it was initially shot down by then-DC Films president Walter Hamada as he had his own plan for what Superman's future would be, and it included introducing a Black Superman.

This would not stop Johnson, however, as he went around Hamada and spoke to Warner Bros. Pictures heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy to make it happen, and they were both on his side. The pair gave the team a tight deadline, but that didn't stop them from securing Cavill and making the cameo happen.

Speaking on THR's Behind the Screen podcast, Sher discussed how the scene was shot and that work began on making the cameo happen even before the whole thing was approved. The first step, according to Sher, was to film Johnson's part of the post-credits scene and then try to make Cavill happen.

“If we can get Henry to be in it, then we’ll figure that out on a future date,” Sher said.

Sher said that Black Adam director Jaume Collet-Serra wanted to just use the throne room set that was already in place, create "something for Dwayne to walk into," and then shoot it in "like 10 minutes."

That scene was the last scene shot on the last day of additional photography, and the team then created the second part of the scene with "a [Superman] body double and a version of John Williams’ 1978 Superman theme they found on Google." Superman's face was never shown, and the focus was instead on his iconic emblem.

“Watching an actor come out of a full silhouette into that, was actually goosebumps. ‘Wow, this is 100 percent going to work. Now they need to figure out if they can get the guy with the head to be there,’” Sher recalls.

The team showed their work in progress to a test audience, and "it played gangbusters." It inspired them even more to get Cavill to return and the rest, as they say, is history.

“There are certain people that are iconic as the characters that they play, and [Cavill is] really one of them,” says Sher.

For more, check out our review of Black Adam, our explainer of the ending, what Cavill's cameo means for the DCEU, and our deep dive into the history of Sabbac.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Director Tim Burton has shared why his live-action remake of Dumbo will probably be the last film he will ever make for Disney.

As reported by Deadline, Burton was speaking about this topic at a press conference at the Lumière Festival in Lyon, France, where he received the Prix Lumière award. For those unfamiliar, this award recognizes someone in the world of film for their contributions to the medium.

Burton's career began at Disney after the company noticed him for his work on Stalk of the Celery Monster at CalArts. He began with an animator's apprenticeship and worked his way to become one of the most celebrated directors for Disney and beyond. However, it appears his time working on Dumbo made him realize he just may be done with Disney altogether.

"My history is that I started out there," Burton said. "I was hired and fired like several times throughout my career there. The thing about Dumbo, is that’s why I think my days with Disney are done, I realized that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape. That movie is quite autobiographical at a certain level."

Burton also discussed how Disney has become a bit "homogenized" and that, most likely, not even an invitation to create a film in the MCU would be enough to bring him back, as he can "only deal with one universe," and can't "deal with a multi-universe.”

"It’s gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated," Burton said of Disney. "There’s less room for different types of things."

We called Burton's Dumbo "mediocre" in our review, saying, "this routine remake doesn't manage to recapture the surreal strangeness of the original Disney classic or elevate the dated premise into something better.

While he may not be working with Disney for the foreseeable future, his fans will soon be able to see his work on Netflix's Wednesday, which premieres on November 23 and follows the character Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Valorant's Episode 5: Act III Battlepass includes a gun buddy called "Corbin's Light" that honors a fan named Corbin who recently passed away after a battle with cancer.

The Valorant team shared the news and Corbin's story in a blog for what's new in Valorant's newest season. The words reveal that the Gun Buddy itself was inspired by design notes from Corbin and his older brother, and it includes the coordinates of a star that was named after Corbin by the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

In honor of Corbin, Riot Games will additionally be making a donation via its Riot Games Social Impact Fund to the C-Squad Foundation, a charity that was started in Corbin's honor before he passed.

If you'd like to add Corbin's Light to your collection, you'll have to earn 23,000 XP in Valorant's latest free Battlepass. It is the equivalent of around 30 tiers on the paid Battlepass.

On C-Squad Foundation's Instagram, the people behind the page mentioned an article from GameRevolution that includes a quote from Riot Games associate integration artist Catalina Faerman explaining more about the piece.

"Corbin’s Light holds deep personal meaning. It was made for one of our players who sadly passed away during his battle with cancer," Faerman said. "The Make-a-Wish Foundation named a star after Corbin, so we decided to honor him by creating a Gun Buddy inspired by his star, and additional design notes from his brother. In some ways it was incredibly easy to design. Corbin and I are kindred spirits in our love of astronomy. It has been my dream to work at Riot for a long time, and it’s my Star Guardian fan art for League of Legends that ultimately led me here.

"So, Corbin’s Gun Buddy almost felt meant-to-be. In other ways it was an overwhelming task. I wanted to make something that he would’ve been proud of but also represented him. Thankfully I had help from our awesome concept artists to come up with the design. We chose blue for the crystal as it was Corbin’s favorite color, and I added the coordinates to the Make-a-Wish star as an engraving on the frame.

"I haven’t been on the VALORANT team for long, so I’m honored and grateful beyond words to the team who entrusted me and supported me with this task. Most of all, I’m indebted to Corbin and our players for inspiring us and giving me the opportunity to make art for them. I’m incredibly proud of Corbin’s Light and I will carry this experience with me always."

Elsewhere in the world of Valorant lies the Give Back Bundle! that will run from November 16-30. For that time period, "50% of proceeds from weapon skins and 100% of proceeds from accessories in the Give Back // 2022 Bundle will go towards the Riot Games Social Impact Fund in partnership with ImpactAssets."

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Netflix’s Wednesday says she did her best not to act like Christina Ricci.

Speaking with Interview Magazine, actress Jenna Ortega explained why the new live-action interpretation of Wednesday Addams stands on its own two feet.

“It’s very different, but [Christina Ricci is] who people see as Wednesday, and that’s just the truth,” she said. “I feel like the script was very reminiscent of ’90s Wednesday. It was really important to me that I wasn’t doing a knockoff of [Ricci’s] performance, and it was different.”

Ortega stars as a teenage Wednesday Addams in a coming-of-age mystery at her new high school, Nevermore Academy. It’s an age we’ve never seen Wednesday before… and that made things tricky.

“Another thing is every time we’ve seen Wednesday, she’s been 5 years old, 10 years old,” said Ortega. “So, when someone is saying really dark, twisted things out of a place of pure honesty and innocence, that naive aspect of a child, it’s a bit different when you get older and become a teenager because then you just sound like a bitch. You don’t want her to be nasty.”

Walking that fine line meant that Ortega’s performance was notably different from Christina Ricci, who starred as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. But it wasn’t so simple to carve out a unique portrayal.

“Honestly, it was more difficult than I was anticipating,” said Ortega. “Because everything that [Ricci] did is so flawless.”

Equally, it was important for Wednesday to be her own character, and that meant trying out some entirely new looks.

“It was important to Tim [Burton] that she look different than before,” she said. “There were even little tiny braids and super long, thick braids. We tried streaks of gray hair. Initially the bangs—I kind of wish they had been kept this way, but I don’t think Tim liked them very much. They were the short, high-fashion bangs like in Fargo, just psychotic.”

Eventually, they settled on growing Jenna’s hair out… and Burton loved it. “That’s what they were trying to do in terms of modernizing her,” she said. “There’s even times where I’m wearing a hoodie, it was very weird.”

Wednesday heads to Netflix on November 23, 2022. Want to read more about Wednesday? Check out Netflix’s deep dive into Wednesday as well as a teaser for the upcoming show.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Netflix’s Wednesday says she did her best not to act like Christina Ricci.

Speaking with Interview Magazine, actress Jenna Ortega explained why the new live-action interpretation of Wednesday Addams stands on its own two feet.

“It’s very different, but [Christina Ricci is] who people see as Wednesday, and that’s just the truth,” she said. “I feel like the script was very reminiscent of ’90s Wednesday. It was really important to me that I wasn’t doing a knockoff of [Ricci’s] performance, and it was different.”

Ortega stars as a teenage Wednesday Addams in a coming-of-age mystery at her new high school, Nevermore Academy. It’s an age we’ve never seen Wednesday before… and that made things tricky.

“Another thing is every time we’ve seen Wednesday, she’s been 5 years old, 10 years old,” said Ortega. “So, when someone is saying really dark, twisted things out of a place of pure honesty and innocence, that naive aspect of a child, it’s a bit different when you get older and become a teenager because then you just sound like a bitch. You don’t want her to be nasty.”

Walking that fine line meant that Ortega’s performance was notably different from Christina Ricci, who starred as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. But it wasn’t so simple to carve out a unique portrayal.

“Honestly, it was more difficult than I was anticipating,” said Ortega. “Because everything that [Ricci] did is so flawless.”

Equally, it was important for Wednesday to be her own character, and that meant trying out some entirely new looks.

“It was important to Tim [Burton] that she look different than before,” she said. “There were even little tiny braids and super long, thick braids. We tried streaks of gray hair. Initially the bangs—I kind of wish they had been kept this way, but I don’t think Tim liked them very much. They were the short, high-fashion bangs like in Fargo, just psychotic.”

Eventually, they settled on growing Jenna’s hair out… and Burton loved it. “That’s what they were trying to do in terms of modernizing her,” she said. “There’s even times where I’m wearing a hoodie, it was very weird.”

Wednesday heads to Netflix on November 23, 2022. Want to read more about Wednesday? Check out Netflix’s deep dive into Wednesday as well as a teaser for the upcoming show.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

After months without a lot of major game releases in 2022, September came out swinging with six new games ranking in the top 20 best-selling games in the US, led by (of course) FIFA 23.

Madden NFL, which came out and topped the charts last month, held it's second place spot according to The NPD Group's monthly charts (which track by dollar sales). It was followed by four new releases: NBA 2K23, then Splatoon 3, The Last of Us Part 1 (the 2022 remake), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.

Saints Row, last month's No.2, came in at No.7 in September, and then new release JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle followed.

Despite all these new releases, the overall year-to-date top ten didn't change much, with Elden Ring still reigning as the best-selling game of the year thus far, followed by LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Madden moved up two spots, booting down Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Horizon 2, but that's it.

Overall, and again in spite of all the new games, content spending was down 7% in September from the prior year - subscriptions were up, but everything else was down. Meanwhile, hardware spending continues to improve thanks to increased PS5 supply, and the PS5 was the best-seller for the month in both unit and dollar sales. The Xbox Series was in second place for dollar sales, but the Switch was in second for unit sales. And both the PS5 and Xbox Series saw double-digit percentage growth.

Overall, the US spent $4.1 billion on video games, hardware, and accessories in September, down 4% from September 2021.

The following are the top 20 best-selling games for the month of September in the US in terms of dollar sales:

1. FIFA 23
2. Madden NFL 23
3. NBA 2K23
4. Splatoon 3
5. The Last of Us: Part I
6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
7. Saints Row (2022)
8. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle
9. Elden Ring
10. Mario Kart 8
11. Minecraft
12. Marvel's Spider-Man
13. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
14. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War
16. Horizon 2: Forbidden West
17. Call of Duty: Vanguard
18. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
19. MLB: The Show 22
20. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

(Nintendo and Take-Two do not report digital sales, thus they are not factored in for any of their published games above).

Incidentally, we reviewed all six of these new September games here at IGN. You can check out our thoughts on FIFA 23, NBA 2K23, Splatoon 3 single-player and multiplayer, The Last of Us Part 1, TMNT Cowabunga Collection, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - all of which (we think) are good to excellent games.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

The Resident Evil series has experienced a huge REnaissance (or how about REvival?) in the last few years, with multiple new mainline entries and remakes.

With modern remakes of 2, 3, and 4 on the books, some RE fans are hoping to see a remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica. According to Capcom, however, there are currently no plans to remake the 2000 Dreamcast title.

Speaking to Noisy Pixel, Resident Evil 4 producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi said Capcom's current focus is currently on Resident Evil 4, but if the "opportunity comes, maybe" the company will remake Code Veronica.

Code Veronica was originally released on the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. It was later ported to the PlayStation 2 and GameCube, and saw an HD release on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

The game follows Claire Redfield from Resident Evil 2 and Chris Redfield from the original Resident Evil. We were fans of the game in our original review, but called out its aging elements in each subsequent remaster, making the game a great candidate for a from-the-ground-up remake.

Capcom's modern remake era began with the Resident Evil 2 remake in 2019, and Resident Evil 3 followed shortly after in 2020. Both games earned amazing scores in our reviews. Resident Evil 4 is set to come out on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, and PC on March 24.

We just went hands-on with the upcoming Resident Evil 4 remake. In our preview, we said the game "feels as if it’s trying to find that perfect balance between tribute and innovation." You can also check out our comparison of the original Resident Evil 4 and the remake.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.